Becoming a doctor used to be the ultimate ticket to success\nin America. It took brains and hard work, but once you put the initials M.D.\nafter your name all the effort paid off. Doctors enjoyed respect and financial\nsuccess, and rarely had to worry about whether they would find work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Becoming a doctor today still requires brains and a lot of\nhard work, and generally acquiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in student\nloan debt in the process. What it no longer commands is respect, financial\nsuccess, or even a fair chance to practice your profession in the country where\nyou were born and studied. American doctors are facing the same sort of employment\ndiscrimination that workers in many other fields face: Their industry now prefers\nworkers from other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the United States is facing an unprecedented health care crisis, more than 6,500 recent American medical school graduates do not even have the chance to practice medicine. They have been \u201cpassed over by residency programs around the country,\u201d writes Dr. Esther Raja<\/a>, who advocates for these unemployed physicians. All of these idled health care professionals, whose skills should be at a premium have already passed rigorous licensing exams. \u201cAt the same time, the government continues to issue thousands of visas to foreign doctors each year, \u00addespite the medical talent languishing at home,\u201d she notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deck is stacked against Americans who graduate from\nAmerican medical schools. Foreign doctors are just more profitable. To begin\nwith, Dr. Raja explains, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical\nGraduates (ECFMG), which has to certify foreign doctors applying for J-1 visas,\ncollects about $1,050 for each one they certify. The ECFMG also charges the\nforeign doctors $4,000 in exam fees. It\u2019s a very lucrative practice for the\nECFMG, which pocketed $90 million in revenues in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, pay the cost of having\ntheir citizens do their residency at U.S. hospitals. A Saudi resident can\ngenerate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues for the American hospital\nwhere they train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, notes Dr. Raja, \u201cMany residency-program\nadministrators were themselves J-1 visa holders at one point. And they show a\nbias for their countrymen. It\u2019s no coincidence that roughly 50 percent of all\nforeign doctors on J-1 visas hail from just three countries \u2014 Canada, India and\nPakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than spur calls for enabling American doctors to practice medicine in the United States, the COVID-19 crisis has done precisely the opposite. It has intensified the pressure to admit still more foreign doctors who already account for about 30 percent of practicing physicians<\/a>. Immigration advocates demand<\/a> that any foreign national who has ever touched a stethoscope be granted permanent U.S. residency \u2013 a provision that was included in the House approved HEROES Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re told we have a shortage of doctors in the United States \u2013 that we have one of the lowest ratios of doctors to population in the developed world. We don\u2019t. Like so many other fields, what we have a system that discriminates against our own best workers, in favor of foreigners. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Becoming a doctor used to be the ultimate ticket to success in America. It took brains and hard work, but once you put the initials M.D. after your name all the effort paid off. Doctors enjoyed respect and financial success, and rarely had to worry about whether they would find work. Becoming a doctor today<\/p>\n